


This I Know

by walkthegale



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alcohol, Awkward Crush, Awkward Flirting, Cake, F/F, Feelings, Femslash, Ficlet, Ficlet Collection, First Kiss, Friendship, Gen, Goblins, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Mutual Pining, Polyamory, Polynein (Critical Role), Reading, Tea, Team as Family, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-04-23 18:11:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 5,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14338179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkthegale/pseuds/walkthegale
Summary: Critical Role ficlets written for Tumblr prompts.





	1. Beau/Yasha - What do you think you're doing?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by an anon.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/172996489406/what-do-you-think-youre-doing-any-critical

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

Beau grins over her shoulder and then scales the remaining distance onto the rooftop.

In the alley below, Yasha glares after her, folding her arms. “We’ll be caught.”

Beau’s head reappears over the edge of the roof. “Bullshit,” she says. “I know what I’m doing.”

It’s too dark for Yasha to make out her expression at this distance, but she can see when Beau holds a hand out towards her.

“C’mon,” Beau urges her. “Get up here!”

Yasha wants to turn away, wants to head back to the inn and not take this foolish, pointless fucking risk for no reason at all. If it was anyone else up there, she’d already be gone.

She checks that her greatsword is securely fastened to her back. It always is, but she checks it anyway. She clenches her fists, takes a deep breath, looks up at where Beau is perched above her, and she follows her. She’s not as nimble as Beau, not as light, and her feet scrabble noisily against stone as she climbs.

“Beau…” she says when she finally reaches the top.

“It’s ok,” Beau tells her, and now Yasha is near enough to see her smirk. “I’m sneaky enough for the both of us.”

“Fuck you,” Yasha says, amiably.

“That’s the plan.”

Beau is moving before Yasha can process that, let alone formulate a reply, and then it takes all of her concentration to go after her without waking the whole town.

Some time later, after a near-miss with a guard in the street below, and an uncomfortable encounter with some curious pigeons, Yasha nearly smacks into the back of Beau when she comes to a halt at last.

“There,” Beau gestures expansively and Yasha has to admit that the view is really something - the town laid out in shadows beneath them, trailing down to the edge of the sea, where the sun is just beginning to appear over the misty horizon.

There’s a moment where the silence between them is on the verge of becoming awkward, where neither quite knows where to put her eyes or body or thoughts.

But then they’re kissing, and Yasha is never quite sure who starts these things, because she feels like it’s unlikely that it was her, but she doesn’t think it’s always Beau either.

And then Beau’s hands are in her hair, and Beau’s mouth is open and eager against her own, and Beau is wrapped in her arms, all of Beau’s bright energy and movement and heat held close, and Yasha doesn’t think about anything much else for a while.


	2. Beau/Jester - She threw her hands up in the air in exasperation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by lucretiafly.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/173008233896/she-threw-her-hands-up-in-the-air-in

She threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “Jester, will you cut it out?”

“I’m not doing anything bad!” Jester waved her book in Beau’s direction, all wide-eyed indignation. “I’m reading! Would you like to hear what my book is about?”

Beau rubbed her hand across her face. “Not… not now, ok? Can you read somewhere else? You keep, like, flicking me with your tail.”

“Ohhh, I’m sorry Beau, it’s just very interesting, you know? What are you doing, anyway? Are you sleeping? I didn’t mean to interrupt your nap.”

“No!” Beau rearranged herself back into the proper position. “I’m _meditating_.”

“Are you sure, Beau? Because I am pretty sure you were snoring.”

Beau’s eyes snapped open and her hand made a fist of its own volition. She managed to hold a glare in the face of Jester’s shit-eating grin for a long moment, before she flopped backwards onto the grass with a groan. “Ok, ok, I fucking hate meditating anyway.”

“Ok, good.” Jester shuffled over from where she’d been sitting, until she was near enough that her knee pressed against Beau’s arm, and peered down at Beau. “You want to know what I was reading instead?”

Beau scowled and shrugged eloquently.

“It’s such a good book, Beau! It’s about this fancy elf lady, and she gets kidnapped, but then this strong tiefling pirate lady rescues her, and they sail away in a boat, and then they kiss! It’s the most romantic story I’ve ever read!” She looked at Beau expectantly.

“It sounds great, Jester, really…” Beau’s brain caught up with her mouth. “Wait, a strong tiefling pirate _lady_?”

“Yes! Oh, Beau, I just know you’d love it if you read it!” Jester chewed her lip with a speculative air. “You know, if you got kidnapped, I could probably rescue you. I’m pretty strong.”

Beau sat up abruptly. “What? Why am I the one being kidnapped? More like I’d rescue you if you got kidnapped!”

Jester’s face was suddenly very close, and Beau discovered she was struggling to remember what she had been about to say. She looked from Jester’s sparkling eyes to her lips, and found her own mouth had gone dry. “Uh,” she managed.

“You could rescue me if you wanted,” Jester told her, in a low voice that Beau hadn’t heard her use before, which sent a shiver right through her. “That would be ok.”

Beau didn’t know, when she thought about it, whether she kissed Jester first or if Jester had closed the space between them. What she did know was that she never wanted it to stop.


	3. Beau & Nott - I think you have a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by an anon.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/173125982486/i-think-you-have-a-problem-critical-role-for

“I think you have a problem.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Nott tips her head at the slightly singed-looking group they’ve just saved from some angry fire elementals. “That one likes you.”

Beau glances over. One of the group, a human girl who might have been in her mid-teens, is definitely looking back at her. The girl catches Beau’s eye and smiles, looks down at the ground. It’s hard to tell through the dirt and scratches on her face, but Beau thinks she might be blushing. Shit. The last thing she needs is some kid trailing around after her.

Beau turns back in a hurry. Nott has gone back to sorting some of the loot they’d picked up, making a small pile next to her of anything particularly shiny. She’s grinning under her mask - Beau can tell that now from the way she holds the rest of her face.

“Shut up,” she tells her.

“I didn’t say anything.”

There’s a muffled sound from where Caleb is sitting nearby that might have been a quiet laugh.

“You can fuck off too,” Beau adds for good measure. She sits down next to Nott, picks a rusted dagger from the pile and spins it around in her fingers.

“Hero-worship’s a powerful thing,” Nott says, after a moment.

Beau shifts, suddenly uncomfortable. “You and Caleb would know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

Nott just looks her, with those intense yellow eyes. Beau has noticed how much those eyes see. How much fierce attention Nott pays to every little thing. She’s not sure how she feels about it.

“I’m not anyone’s hero,” she says, eventually.

“All right, Beau,” Nott finds a small gem of some kind among the loot and it’s gone in a flash, squirrelled away somewhere on her person. “Whatever you say.”


	4. Beau/Yasha - Don't leave. Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by an anon.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/173201301331/dont-leave-not-yet-beauyasha-oh-the-feels

“Don’t leave. Not yet.” Beau’s drunk. She knows she is, because those words are out of her mouth before she can call them back.

She might be drunk, but it’s raining, really raining, for the first time in weeks, and she can see it reflected in Yasha’s eyes. She can see how Yasha drinks it in, little shining water drops on her skin, the sticky, city mud clinging to her boots, and a sincere purpose in the set of her face. She doesn’t look resigned exactly, nor eager. A thing has to be done, and Beau is left with no doubt that Yasha will do it.

Still, she asks, in a tone she’ll regret in the morning. “Don’t go.”

Yasha looks back at her, framed in the doorway, almost seeming to glow against the darkness outside. “I’ll come back,” she offers, when she didn’t need to say anything at all.

Beau nods. “You’d better.”

Something crosses Yasha’s face, fleeting, and Beau isn’t sure what it is.

“Take care of them,” Yasha says after a moment. “Take care of Molly. He… He doesn’t know he needs it.”

And then, between one breath and another, she’s gone.

What Beau wants is to rush after her. To grab her by the shoulder and spin her around and kiss her hard, there in the rain and the dark, in the small, quiet hours where nothing is completely real.

She goes to find her bed instead, in the room where people sleep who might, maybe, be her friends. She takes comfort in their presence, their warmth all around her, and she won’t remember that thought when she wakes, so it’s ok to think it now.

Outside, somewhere in the night, maybe Yasha is thinking about them too.


	5. Jester & Molly - You’re like my brother, y’know?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by an anon.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/173226406111/if-youre-still-doing-ficlets-youre-like-my

“You’re like my brother, y’know?”

Jester’s eyes are starting to lose their focus, and Molly is beginning to feel panic seeping in, deep and dark, worming around the edges of his carefully constructed calm. He resolves not to let Jester see. The stone floor is so cold for her to be lying on, and he wants to pull her head into his lap, but he doesn’t dare, because what if she starts bleeding again. Fuck, there was so much bleeding.

“We’re a good family, I think.” Her voice is hazy, drifting. “…I think you’re a good brother, Mollymauk Tealeaf.”

“You don’t know me very well, then.” He’s proud of the jovial tone he manages.

She doesn’t lift her head, but she looks at him. “You are. You’re a good brother to me. And to… and to Yasha, and to the others. We’re a good family, Molly. I’ve never had a family before, but I think we’re a good one.”

He notices that her eyes are closing. That can’t be good. Got to keep her talking.

“You have a family, Jester. What about your mother?”

There’s a moment before she answers, just long enough for a cold stone to settle in his belly. But then, “Oh yeah, my mom is good. She loves me. But she’s not a whole family, you know, her and the Traveler, they’re good, but there’s only two of them.” She reaches out with one arm, just a little, wincing as she moves, and Molly takes her hand. “I never had a brother before, so I guess you could be a shit one, and I wouldn’t know.”

A huff of laughter jolts from him at that. Her hand is very cold in his.

There was so much blood. What if she dies? What if she dies, here in this fucking locked room, because he couldn’t save her? Who is Mollymauk Tealeaf if that happens? Does he get to start again, to be someone new?

“You’re a good sister,” he tells her, but she doesn’t answer. He wants to check if she’s breathing, but he can’t quite make himself move.

The door explodes inwards, revealing Caleb, his arms thrown wide in a casting stance, magic crackling at the tips of his fingers. The others are all behind him, spells and potions ready, and Molly is on his feet before he knows what’s happening, shoving people at Jester, yelling for them to help her. And she’s alive, she’s breathing, and her eyes are open. Her eyes are open.

Their family are here to take them home.


	6. Beau/Yasha - Could you be happy here with me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by an anon.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/173391728496/could-you-be-happy-here-with-me-beauyasha-or

"Could you be happy here with me?" 

“Jester, if you don’t put down that fucking book, I’m gonna let Caleb set it on fire tomorrow.”

“But isn’t that just the most romantic thing you ever heard? And then she says she’d be happy anywhere with Oskar, and…”

“...And they live sappily ever after and have a hundred squalling half-orc babies. I _know_.”

Jester shuts the book with a snap. “Why are you such a grumpy-pants tonight, Beau?”

“I’m not grumpy!” Beau peers out from under the covers long enough to glare over at Jester. “I just want to get some sleep in my own damn room.” She turns over, slams her head back into the pillow.

She hears Jester’s feet hit the floor and scrunches her eyes closed as Jester pads over to her bed.

“It’s ok,” Jester’s voice is soft now. “She’ll come back.” She presses a kiss to Beau’s temple, and then heads back to her own bed. “G’night, Beau. Have unicorn dreams.”

Beau’s clenches her hands so tightly that the skin across her knuckles hurts, She refuses to even acknowledge that. She doesn’t miss Yasha. She doesn’t. Yasha can do whatever the fuck she wants. If Yasha never comes back again, they’ll be just fucking fine without her. Beau will be fine without her. Beau is fine without anybody, if she needs to be. She was fine before and she’ll be fine again.

It takes Beau long enough to fall asleep that she’s contemplating just giving up and joining Molly in the bar, but she does, eventually, and if she dreams, she doesn’t know it.

Beau wakes when the window opens.

The room is dark and Jester is asleep, and the figure outlined in moonlight at the end of Beau’s bed is Yasha. She knows it so immediately that she doesn’t even try to kick her ass.

Yasha slides into bed next to Beau, her clothes rough and damp from the night air, and kisses her hard, with a silent desperation that is as familiar to Beau as her own skin. _Don’t ask_ , says Yasha’s kiss, and she’s holding Beau almost tight enough to be painful.

Beau doesn’t ask. Yasha is here, and Beau kisses her back.


	7. Poly Nein - I’m not that far, I promise. Just look for the storm clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by randomfandoms2004.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/173514316131/i-need-some-polyamory-nein-up-in-here-which-is

“I’m not that far, I promise. Just look for the storm clouds.”

Those were the words Yasha left them with, and those are the words Beau holds onto when they go after her.

That’s how it starts. They go after Yasha, and they find her, and they fight for her, and, in the furious rush of everything, with blood on her knuckles and sweat and rain running down her spine, Beau kisses Yasha before she can catch her breath, there in front of everyone with Yasha’s hands firm about her waist.

“About damn time,” is what Mollymauk says, pulling Caleb in close and kissing the surprise off his face. Caleb stands gaping afterwards, until Nott rolls her eyes and takes a drink and pushes him back into Molly’s arms.

That’s how it begins, but it doesn’t end there.

The next time Beau kisses Yasha, Jester kisses her too, kisses both of them, first Yasha, then Beau, all teeth and tongue and wandering fingers, and Beau is breathless with how much she wants this, wants them. Both of them.

Molly kisses Caleb and Fjord in quick succession, thoroughly and with great enthusiasm. Fjord kisses Caleb like a puzzle piece slotting into place, and Beau can see her own heart in Molly’s eyes.

No one is surprised when Jester kisses Fjord, nor when she moves on to Caleb and then to Molly, laughing and dancing between them like a butterfly. Beau watches and finds she’s laughing too, leaning back into Yasha’s embrace, with Yasha’s breath warm on her neck.

This is how it begins, with kisses in the aftermath of battle, flying high on adrenaline and victory and the hum of magic in the air. Kisses that Beau was never looking for, but that now seem inevitable.

Somewhere along the way, they stop getting separate rooms, separate beds. Somewhere kissing becomes touching, becomes heat and bare skin and tangles of limbs in different combinations, and each knowing the sounds the others make in bliss and in sorrow, in joy and in fear.

Somewhere, Beau realises that maybe these people belong to her, and she to them.

When Yasha leaves again, they follow the storm and go after her. All of them, together.


	8. Fjord & Yasha - I really can’t stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by randomfandoms2004.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/173557158591/i-really-cant-stay-yasha-its-fucking-cold

“I really can’t stay.”

“Yasha, it’s fucking cold outside.”

Yasha hovers in the doorway, discomfort radiating from every line of her body.

“At least have a drink with me before you go. One for the road?” Fjord beckons her over to his table near the fire in the cosy tavern they’ve been staying at for the last few days. She sits down, gingerly, perched on the edge of a chair.

“I don’t… I don’t drink.” She pauses for a moment. “But, um, thank you.”

“Well then have a tea - something hot before you vanish dramatically into the snowy night.” Fjord is grinning at her, with his usual casual warmth that she’s never quite sure if she entirely buys. “Come on.”

She twists her fingers together. “I don’t really feel the cold,” she tells him.

“Suit yourself.” He shrugs. “You, uh, planning on coming back to us?”

Yasha wonders whether he really cares if she comes back. She feels like he does, like he wants her there with them, but she’s seen him turn that charm on too many people already, and maybe he just finds her useful. She doesn’t know how to trust a person whose words come as easily as Fjord’s do, who can wrap anyone around their little finger with a few well-placed remarks. Words have never come easily to Yasha. It’s not that she hasn’t tried.

“I’ve always come back before,” she says, eventually.

“That’s true,” he acknowledges. “You always manage to find us, somehow.”

“You don’t make it difficult.”

He laughs at that. “No, I guess we leave quite a trail, don’t we?” He looks at her for a long moment. “Beau will miss you. I mean, we all will, we’ve got used to having you around and all, but Beau will especially.”

She has no idea what to say to any of that. Not the first clue. So she nods. She nods and she gets to her feet and she heads back to the door. It’s time for her to go.

“Stay safe, Yasha,” Fjord calls to her as she goes.

She looks back at him, and she chooses to believe that he means it, because maybe he does. She lets herself smile, just a little.

“You too, Fjord.”

Yasha steps out into the whirling blizzard and leaves the Mighty Nein behind her, for a while.


	9. Jester & Nott - I've gotten used to being hated when people see me, why were you so nice to me when we first met?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by twinvax.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/173866264716/ive-gotten-used-to-being-hated-when-people-see

"I've gotten used to being hated when people see me, why were you so nice to me when we first met?"

“Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?” Jester contemplates the stack of sweet things arranged between the two of them on the table, and carefully selects a small pink cake dusted with sugar. It sparkles in the sunlight from the window and she smiles. “If you’re nasty to people when you meet them, you’ll never make any new friends.”

Nott swings her legs and takes a sip of tea. “Do you think the people here would want to be my friend, if I wasn’t… like this?” she gestures at herself, as though even saying the word _goblin_ might bring the horror and disgust of their fellow tea shop patrons down upon them. She’s pretty confident in her halfling disguise these days, but it’s not worth taking chances.

“You don’t know that they wouldn’t. Probably some of them would, maybe.”

Nott doesn’t say anything. She looks down at her halfling hands, teacup held tight between them.

After a moment, Jester sighs. “I know, Nott, I know people don’t like goblins here, but those people are stupid, you know.”

“No, they’re not,” Nott can’t quite look up at her. “It’s not stupid not to like goblins. We… Goblins are not nice people. You know that, right? Goblins don’t make good friends.”

Jester reaches across the table and puts her hand on Nott’s arm, and Nott tries her best not to flinch. Jester’s voice is quiet, low enough that Nott isn’t worried about anyone else overhearing them. “I don’t know those goblins,” Jester says. “I just know you, and you make a very good friend.”

Nott looks up, finally, and Jester’s eyes are so warm she can hardly bear it. It takes her a moment to reply. “You make a good friend too, Jester.”

Jester grins. “I know, I practiced really hard.” She takes a huge bite of cake.

Sitting here opposite Jester on this bright, peaceful day, with a few stolen baubles in her pocket and Caleb happily ensconced in a library nearby, Nott thinks that maybe she could practice too.


	10. Molly & Nott - I don't need to be carried, my leg is fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by an anon.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/173871905921/a-sentence-from-a-person-who-is-complaining-or-in

"I don't need to be carried, my leg is fine."

“Oh, really? All right.” Molly unceremoniously dumps Nott on the ground and carries on up the passageway. He’s limping a bit himself, and a sharp, irritating pain gnaws at his ribs, but it’s nothing a little time and maybe a potion won’t heal. “Come on, then,” he calls back, over his shoulder.

He makes it about twenty paces before a reluctant voice calls him back. He’d push it further, pretend to leave her there, but he thinks Nott might really be in trouble.

“Stop being so bloody ridiculous,” he tells her when he gets back, picking her up with much more care than his tone implies. The gash on her leg is long and ugly, and Molly’s pretty sure there might be a broken bone or two hidden in there.

He sets off again, and between Nott’s added weight and his own discomfort and creeping exhaustion, his pace is definitely something around a trudge at this point. The passage seems endless, rock walls starting to feel like they’re closing in about him. He just has to keep walking, and at the end will be daylight and the world and no more fucking underground. He will not be lost under the earth. Not again.

In his arms, Nott is fiddling with her piece of wire.

“He’s not going to hear you,” Molly tells her. “Give it up, we tried, they’re too far away.”

“He might be nearer now,” Nott says. Her face is very pale, he thinks, a sickly hue to her natural green.

“Or he might be further away. They’ve got no reason to stick around where another fight might find them. They’ll have gone to safety.” He’s telling himself as much as her. He wants to think that they’re safe somewhere, all the others.

“Caleb won’t go without me.”

He doesn’t argue. He’ll allow her her certainty. Maybe if Yasha had been with them, she’d come back for him, but Yasha isn’t there. It bothers him that she might come back to the group some time and find him gone.

An indeterminate amount of time later, that might have been an hour or might have been a day, Molly doesn’t know how he’s still walking but he is. Nott has fallen silent, leaning her head against his chest. She stopped trying to cast a message some time ago.

When he hears Jester’s voice, somewhere above him, he thinks maybe he’s fallen asleep on his feet, but then there are Beau’s grating tones, and he can’t imagine a scenario where he’d be dreaming Beauregard as his rescuer.

There’s a crack in the rock, up over their heads, and Caleb tells them to stand back so that he can use some kind of dramatic spell to get through to them.

Molly takes a few steps back into the endless darkness and, still holding Nott, he drops to his knees. _Have a little faith next time, Mollymauk_ , he tells himself. He doesn’t know what grim thread of his past wound itself through his brain and told him that no one would come for him, and he doesn’t want to know. Mollymauk Tealeaf has friends who will save him, and a life to live, and he will not die down here in the ground. Not this time. Not again.


	11. Poly Nein - We need you here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by randomfandoms2004.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/173928361906/more-poly-nein-again-outside-of-nott-but-she

“We need you here.”

“And we love you.”

“Stay...”

“Please?”

Yasha can barely tell all their words apart. They’re speaking over each other, and her own heartbeat thrums in her ears, drowning them out.

She wants to stay.

She didn’t know it was possible to want to stay. Not like this, the pull of it so strong that it’s a physical pain in her chest.

_We love you. We need you._

She loves them. She doesn’t deserve to love even one of them, but she loves them all, and she didn’t know she could.

She didn’t know… She’s here sometimes, and sometimes she’s not, and recently when she’s here there are kisses and touches, and she feels… wanted. Last night she fell asleep with Jester curled into her side, and Beau’s arm flung across her waist, Fjord stretched out on the other side of Jester, and Mollymauk draped across her feet like a cat. Caleb still sleeps in another room, always working on rituals with Nott late into the night, but sometimes now he joins them for a while before morning.

_Stay. Please._

She leaves because she has to, and she comes back when she can, and their lives go on without her. That’s the way of things. She didn’t know they loved her. She doesn’t know how to want to stay. She doesn’t know how to want anything this much. She doesn’t know how to tell them.

She looks from one to another, all of them looking back at her, and she sees something true in all of their eyes. Perhaps they know already.

She doesn’t know how to stay, so she says the only thing she can, and wills her voice not to shake.

“Come with me?”


	12. Jester/Yasha - I have a problem I think you could help with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by an anon.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/174089040791/if-youre-still-taking-prompts-could-i-have-i

“I have a problem I think you could help with.” Yasha looks at her feet, at the sky, at the distant hills. Anywhere but at Jester.

Jester sits down next to her on the grass. “Of course! I’m very good at solving problems, you know!”

There’s no hesitation in Jester’s voice, Yasha notes. No pause before she speaks. She has a thought, and she says it, and it makes people smile. It makes Yasha smile now, despite herself.

“Do you think, um…” She finally meets Jester’s eyes, and it takes her words away, she has to fight to find the thread of what she was saying. “Uh. Fjord. He is teaching Beau how to talk to people. I was thinking it would be good if… if I also knew some of that. To help when we have to do things that need me to talk. So that I am not… so that I don’t put us in danger.” She stumbles to a halt.

“You don’t put us in danger, Yasha, you save us from danger! All the time!”

“I am good at fighting,” Yasha acknowledges. “But I would like to learn new things, in all these new places I am seeing now.” She can feel herself starting to flush. She wants to stand up, to walk away. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked…”

Jester cuts her off. “No! You should ask me anything, if you want to! But you could have asked Fjord too, or Molly, or something. You talk to Molly a lot already, he would probably be really good at helping you. Why are you asking me?”

Yasha knows she’s blushing now. She glances up at Jester and then away again. She can’t leave. She’s started this and now she can’t stop, because Jester will be hurt, and that’s the last thing she wants. “I like how you talk,” is what she says eventually, though it’s only such a very small part of what she means.

“Oh.”

Jester goes still beside her and, after a moment, Yasha summons up the courage to look at her. She finds that there’s a darker blue tinge spread across Jester’s cheeks, and she’s smiling - a secret, hidden sort of a smile that doesn’t look quite like the ones she uses every day.

Yasha doesn’t know what possesses her, but she leans forward and kisses the corner of Jester’s strange, lovely new smile, just a quick, gentle kiss, and then she pulls back, awkward again, and a little afraid.

Except that Jester doesn’t let her go. She catches Yasha’s face between her hands and kisses her back, full and soft and sweet and Yasha can feel that she’s still smiling and she thinks she might be smiling too.

“Of course I will help you,” Jester tells her, almost in a whisper, when they finally part. “But, you know, I don’t think you need any help. I like how you talk too.”


	13. Jester/Yasha - I really miss home.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by nameslovegoodyeslovegood.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/175545166886/another-prompti-may-also-try-and-write-this

“I really miss home.”

They’re sitting in the mouth of a cave. Not even a cave really, just a shallow depression in the rock, but it’s a bit of shelter from the wind at least. Not one of them suggested they light a fire. Not when they might be seen. Not when there’s even the smallest chance they might get caught again.

Fjord’s asleep, and Jester should be too. Yasha’s been watching the darkness for a while now and she’s pretty sure Jester slept for some of it, though she doesn’t know when she woke.

Jester’s words hang in the air. She gets up from where’s she’s been lying close to Fjord. She’s always warm, and it radiates, and the three of them have learned to take advantage of that when they can, sleeping pressed close, limbs tucked together.

Yasha shifts over on the rock she’s found to sit on, and Jester joins her.

All this time, none of them ever spoke about what they missed. It would have made their captivity too hard, too much to bear.

But Jester says it now, so quietly. “I miss home. I miss my mom. I miss our friends.” A shudder runs through Jester, violent enough that it shakes Yasha too and she looks carefully at Jester’s face, but Jester isn’t crying. She keeps talking, and it feels like her words are too intimate, like Yasha shouldn’t be hearing them at all. “Do you think they’re ok, our friends? Do you think Beau is ok, and Molly and Caleb and Nott? Do you think something bad happened to them? Do you think Kiri is ok in Hupperdook? Do you think Calianna is ok? Do you think she tried to write to me and she doesn’t know why I didn’t write back?”

It’s like she can’t stop, once the words began. They pour out of her, caught on the wind and carried away into the mountain night.

Yasha listens until she’s done, trailing off into a silence that seems somehow a little lighter than it did before.

She takes Jester’s warm hand in her own. Even after everything they’ve been through together recently, she almost expects Jester to flinch, is almost surprised when she doesn’t. There are still unhealed scabs around both of Jester’s wrists, where the chains dug deep.

“You can ask them,” she says, carefully, holding tight to Jester’s hand. “When we find them again, you can ask them if they are ok.”

Near their feet, Fjord stirs, and Jester leans against Yasha’s shoulder, and Yasha feels a warmth that has nothing to do with Jester’s actual body heat. If she thinks about it too hard, it might feel like comfort. It might feel like love. And maybe, just a tiny bit, like hope.


	14. Caduceus & Caleb - “YOU DID WHAT?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by atlantisrises.
> 
> http://walkthegale.tumblr.com/post/182743882071/43-for-clayleb-mostly-cuzi-have-no-idea-how-to

“YOU DID WHAT?!”

Caduceus has never heard Caleb this angry before. Sad, defeated, afraid, guilty, frustrated - he could go on listing negative emotions for a while if he wanted to - but not this angry and not this _loud_ about it. Maybe he’ll just continue making dinner until it inevitably blows over.

“Stupid, stupid… how could you…” Caleb’s voice from the next room gets a little quieter, shifting into something long and complex that’s probably Zemnian because Caduceus doesn’t understand it. There’s a dark, vicious bile in the sound of it that’s not ok, especially if he’s talking to one of their friends, which he must be, because Caduceus didn’t hear anyone else come in.

He sets aside his spoon, checks the heat under the vegetable stew, wipes his hands carefully on a nearby cloth, and goes to find out what’s going on, picking up his staff from where he leaned it against the wall earlier. He’s sure he won’t need it, but just in case.

The door to Caleb’s room is ajar but it’s polite to knock, so Caduceus does.

There’s a silence, and a brief scuffling, which probably means it’s ok to go in, so Caduceus does that too.

The first thing he notices is that Caleb is the only one in the room. The second thing he notices is the halo of crumpled papers, ink spatters, and half-used spell ingredients. Caleb, seated in the centre of this general destruction, seems perhaps a little shame-faced.

“Ok,” Caduceus says, the word drawing itself out nice and slow. “Were you talking to yourself?” There’s nothing wrong with talking to yourself, of course, if you’re so inclined, but Caduceus really hadn’t liked that tone.

Another silence, and then Caleb wipes his forehead with his hand and takes a shaky breath. “Ja,” he says, not meeting Caduceus’s eyes.

“Ok,” Caduceus says again. He puts his hand on Caleb’s shoulder, the way he’s seen Beauregard do, and Caleb doesn’t flinch. “I’m going to make you some tea, and then you’re going to help me make dinner for everyone.”

Caleb nods, tears his gaze from the floor with visible effort, and reaches out a hand to Caduceus, letting himself be pulled to his feet. He seems to weigh less than a good bag of flour.

“Thank you, Mr Clay,” he says, his voice a little steadier than it was. “You are very kind.”

Caduceus doesn’t know about that, and he doesn’t know about Caleb, really, not very much at all. Perhaps today is the day to find out.


End file.
